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Dine Amongst the Dead at India’s New Lucky Restaurant

The New Lucky restaurant in India is like no other – it fuses a historic cemetery with a casual café that serves food. The restaurant’s owner Krishan Kutti simply set up tables amidst the above-ground graves, placing guardrails around each coffin. The concept seems beyond unorthodox, but Kutti says that the dining experience will bring patrons good luck.

The typical daily chores of opening the New Lucky restaurant goes beyond setting tables and bringing down chairs. Each day, the New Lucky employees pay their respect to the dead by cleaning the graves and placing fresh flowers on the caskets, making sure they look impeccable for incoming customers. The coffins, which number just 12 in all, remain above ground and are fenced in so customers can’t touch them. They date back to when the site was a Muslim cemetery, and although the exact dates aren’t known, local legend says that they are the remains of the followers of a 16th century Sufi saint, who is also buried nearby.

The public has reacted to the cemetery-cum-restaurant with intrigue rather than disdain. Many flock to the restaurant out of sheer curiosity, and to have the experience of dining next to a grave. Yet most customers are locals, who come in to enjoy their daily tea and biscuits, which just happens to be next to a coffin.